On Sun 12 Jul 2009 07:48:14a, graham told us...

>
> "blake murphy" > wrote in message
> ...
>> On Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:44:56 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
>>
>>> "pat" > wrote in message
>>> .
>>> ..
>>>> Pennyaline wrote:
>>>>>James Silverton wrote:
>>>>>>Well, I won't hold onto my hat since theMetric systemhas been
>>>>>>*legal* here for about a century. I'd also forgotten what was a
>>>>>>"Chopine" :-)
>>>>>
>>>>>It may be legal, young fella, but it isn't American!
>>>>
>>>> There are US laws that forbid metrication. US Federal law (the FPLA,
>>>> for example) forbids metric-only labels on most prepackaged things
>>>> you see in the supermarket.
>>>
>>> Probably because too many people would not know how to easily do the
>>> conversion or think in metric terms. Bacon has always been a pound and
>>> thus will remain so, or something like that. 500 grams or a half kilo
>>> would make their brain hurt.
>>>
>>> The two reasons I've always run into is a large percentage just don't
>>> want to change and are afraid, another big group thinks the US system
>>> is superior, just because it is the US system. We are in a world
>>> economy, like it or not, and if we used metric, it would be easier for
>>> our country to deal wit the rest of the world. The Hubble telescope
>>> would not have been screwed up.
>>>
>>> I've been using metric at work for 20 years now. It is easy and
>>> sensible, and the choice of most everyone there now that they've used
>>> it.
>>
>> i'm not that old, but i think i would spend the rest of my life
>> thinking, 'o.k., a half kilo is about a pound.'
>>
>
> That only happens if both systems are used together. If the US went
> metric overnight, i.e., with no transition period, it wouldn't be long
> before people thought in metric.
>
>
>

Among other things, if you cook and use cookbooks, you'd be constantly
converting forever...unless you threw them all out and replaced them. Most
of my US cookbooks do not contain metric measurements.

Having said that, I have quite a few cookbooks from the UK and Europe. I
made a point of buying measuring equipment for that purpose, as well as a
scale that weighs in both ounces and grams.

--
Wayne Boatwright
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If junk food is the devil, then a sweet orange is as scripture.
~Audrey Foris